SAN ANTONIO — Lawyers hired by the Alamo Area Council of Governments to scrutinize a tenant who promised to grant AACOG millions of dollars were suspicious of the company's business dealings and dubious of its financial soundness.

But the lawyers' warnings before the two entities engaged in business together never reached the AACOG board.

In June 2012, the law firm Denton, Navarro, Rocha & Bernal conducted due diligence on Jackqueline Cooper and her company, TriHM Foundation, and advised AACOG's executive staff to do more homework before going any further.

Released to the San Antonio Express-News in an open records request, the memo advised Dean Danos and Mike Quinn, AACOG's executive director and deputy executive director, respectively, to request additional financial documents, “including permission to obtain a credit check to ensure the veracity of their proposal and financial soundness.”

Both executives were placed on administrative leave with pay last month, when questions arose about their relationship with Cooper and her company — which signed a lease for space in AACOG's building but never paid rent.

Since then, AACOG has hired Peden Investigations to conduct an internal investigation, and the Texas Rangers and San Antonio police are probing any possible criminal misconduct.

The executives' employment status is expected to be decided by the board next week.

The law firm's background check was ordered, according to the documents, because plans apparently were in the works for AACOG and TriHM to build a $40 million building together.

The TriHM Foundation LLC filed its certificate of formation with the Texas secretary of state's office July 12, 2013.

Cooper described the company, in the certificate, as one that “will assist communities in obtaining traditional and nontraditional funding to nonprofits, local businesses and other special programs and advisory services that contribute to the health and vitality of a community.”

Lawyers pointed out that Cooper's foundation didn't technically exist — it wasn't registered with the Texas secretary of state until the next year — although a for-profit corporation named Triihm Inc., whose purpose was “to establish a construction company to meet the needs of others in the communities we serve,” was formed in 2011. Cooper was its registered agent.

From 1999 to 2008, people lodged 14 civil judgments, ranging from $100 to $52,000, against Cooper in small claims and civil district court.

She's been convicted of several criminal offenses, including theft of check and theft of service charges, in the past 25 years, with her last arrest occurring in 2007.

In 2004, her home health care agency lost its license and a subsequent appeal because Cooper failed to pay her staff and vendors and lied about client services and treatment, the vetting documents state.

Danos and Cooper signed a lease agreement in July 2012, and AACOG applied for seven TriHM Foundation grants totaling $168 million.

Up until they were placed on leave, Danos and Quinn both said they expected Cooper to pay her overdue rent and to pony up some $168 million in grant money AACOG was expecting for seven projects.

Attempts to reach Danos and Quinn were unsuccessful, so were repeated attempts to reach Cooper.

The vetting documents are the latest evidence of Danos and Quinn making arrangements with Cooper and TriHM without permission of the 30-member AACOG board, Chairman Kevin Wolff said.

He asked staff to review agendas and minutes of AACOG minutes since involvement began in 2012, and on March 6, Tim Treviño — one of three interim deputy directors — told AACOG's executive committee that while TriHM business came before the board about four times, not once did the item require board approval or other action.

“In my mind, it just lends credence to the theory that they were out acting on their own,” Wolff said. “When I asked for a review, I thought that something had to have come before the board. The lease, an approval to negotiate, anything. In reality, though, there was next to nothing, certainly no approval items.”

AACOG has evicted Cooper and TriHM, and threatened in a letter to file a lawsuit if about $127,000 in rent isn't paid in full by late next week.

Even more fallout came in the form of a letter from AACOG's bank, JPMorgan Chase Bank, which ordered the agency to close its 10 accounts after suspicious activity was reported in an account named “Alamo Area Development Corporation,” an agency that shares staff with AACOG and funnels state and national money to local workforce contractors.

Bank account statements obtained in open records requests show that in four transactions in November and December, about $27,000 from the AADC account was wired directly to Cooper.

Officials have said the account was set up to collect money they expected to flow from Cooper's grant coffers, whose funding no one can explain.

“We did not specifically look into whether anybody had ever received any money,” Zech said.

While the vetting documents don't explicitly state that AACOG should avoid doing any business with TriHM or Cooper, many examples are given as to why the governmental agency should exercise caution.

Cooper's health care company, Total Home Health, mistreated patients, was a financial mess with a lousy reputation.

It also suffered an extremely high turnover rate as employees got tired of working without a paycheck and routinely left, according to statements made at a June 2004 state hearing over her license.

After not receiving any physical therapy for 13 days, one patient was seen by a Cooper employee who wasn't licensed to do physical therapy, the records state. Another patient had an infection and went untreated for one day in Cooper's facility, then the infection worsened and the patient had to be hospitalized.

A nurse who quit and was owed paychecks from Cooper testified at the hearing that Cooper was “disorganized and failed to provide her orientation or training. She doubted that (Cooper) had policies and procedures.”